This invention relates generally to apparatus for assisting one in the use of a seat and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to apparatus for assisting one in the use of a toilet seat.
Such apparatus have particular utility for persons whose movements are hampered and made difficult by age, illness, incapacitation, or handicap. These persons frequently find it difficult, if not impossible, to be seated and arise from a seat without assistance from someone more able-bodied. Where the seat in question is a recliner, or a chair at a dining room table, the consequences of dependence on others are a loss of self-esteem and the wages of a helper or a nurse. When the seat in question is a toilet seat, feelings of embarrassment and degradation, as well as diminished dignity and privacy are added as costs. There is, then, a significant need for apparatus that enable the user with limited mobility to become more independent.
A patent issued to Love, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,587,678, discloses a boosting device for pivotally moving a seat frame assembly relative to a stationary frame. The seat frame assembly contains a transverse member which doubles as a brace for a stationary framework, and which is located underneath the forward portion of a toilet seat which has been mounted on the seat frame assembly. The transverse member has pivot pins at its ends, with such pins being placed in upright members of the stationary framework, thereby enabling the rotation of the seat frame assembly and toilet seat about this transverse member. Rotation is actuated by the application of force to a lever arm extending from the transverse member.
A patent to Austin, U.S. Pat. No. 4,168,552, discloses a mechanically adjustable toilet seat employing screw jacks on either side of the seat. The seat is securely held in the horizontal position by a mounting plate. A reversible electric motor actuates the raising or lowering of the seat by means of the screw jacks and a system of belts and pulleys interconnecting the rotary drive shafts of the two jacks, such motor in turn being activated and controlled by the user so that the height of the seat may be adjusted and controlled. A patent to Hunter, U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,833, discloses a device employing hydraulic means instead of electrical means for raising and lowering a toilet seat which has been fixed in horizontal position by attachment to a frame.
A patent to Epstein, U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,576, discloses a toilet seat which is hinged at the back of the seat to a seat assembly employing a vertical slotted member. The vertical slotted member guides the upward and downward movement of the seat, which swings into a substantially vertical position when the user manually activates a lever and rises with the support of arm rests included in the seat assembly. The seat remains in a vertical position during descent of the seat assembly until the front edge of the seat contacts the edge of the commode, at which point the user may begin tranferring his weight from the arm rests to the seat itself for support.
As shown by the above-mentioned disclosures, there is a need for an apparatus that permits a seat to be raised or lowered at the user's convenience. None of these disclosures, however, provides also for simultaneously raising and tilting the entire seat to an upper position where the user can conveniently settle onto or lift off of the seat. Such a feature would minimize stresses on the user's knees and legs in safely attaining a seated position from a standing position, and would provide support, by virtue of its tilting feature, along the user's thighs as the user was raised from, and lowered to, a seated position. A design employing this feature could permit a user to simply pivot his body into position for lowering to, and rising from, a seated position, with a minimum of bending at the knee and with a minimum of reliance on the user's arms to support the user, once the user is pivoted into position on the seat.